By susan fishman orlins  After the sun slides behind the ash trees in my backyard and I’ve satisfied my hunger, my heart begins to thump with anticipation. It’s finally the time I have set aside for GETTING THINGS DONE.
My daylight hours are for pretending to write: hopping around the Internet, pausing periodically to click on the lopsided W at the bottom of my MacBook Pro screen and compose a few words before returning to my mail, my blog stats, Twitter, the New York Times.
But ah the evening! After a day of disappointing myself with how little I’ve produced, I can finally look forward to the sense of accomplishment I crave. I turn on the news and face a pile of bills. It soothes me to hear pundits drone about this candidate that President, while I tend to the soothing task of typing numbers. After an hour my reward is a reduced pile of papers on the coffee table.
If, however, I tune into “Smash” or “Survivor” or “The Daily Show,” I get through perhaps one envelope every 20 minutes, the way I used to stare at my day planner, a Filofax wannabe, and get nothing done. Sometimes my online banking times out. After an hour, I ask myself, “Why don’t I just watch TV and not pretend I’m getting things done?”
I answer myself, “I’m too restless to just sit still and watch.” (an aside, Grammar Girl at quickanddirtytips.com says it’s okay to break the misguided rule about not splitting infinitives.)
Sometimes I allow the same news hour to loop twice. Then I look at the clock and it’s midnight. If I race upstairs right then, I can be in bed by one, and at exactly this moment I realize I haven’t yet walked the dog. And I’m hungry again.
Oh, and I haven’t made my to-do list for tomorrow, which is actually today. I pull out a new piece of scrap paper and write the things I didn’t complete today as well as the usual: paperwork, email, file, organize house.
 Before anything else, though, now that it’s this late, I become a whirling dervish to get more things done. I raise the TV volume then race to my office to file paid bills in manilla folders. I then distribute around the house the day’s accumulation on the dining room table. I go through my mental bedtime checklist: lock porch doors, take vitamins, fill water bottle, adjust thermostat.
I walk Casey, plop some chicken livers into a small pot and place a piece of bread in the toaster. When I finish eating, it’s after 1 a.m. I limp upstairs because of my bad knee that I really ought to have someone look at.
When I get upstairs, I’ll write on my iCal to get a doctor’s appointment, if I remember this by the time I get to my room. If it were urgent, I’d keep repeating, “knee, knee, knee . . .” till I noted it. But if I forget it in the next 60 seconds, tomorrow I’ll have the same thought.
I run the bath and realize I haven’t stretched. So I scurry to finish my squats and leg raises before the tub overflows. I put my floss and face cream on the tub ledge, so I can perform these nightly events while soaking. Even while bathing I am driven to double task.
I just realized I can save a few seconds by leaving the floss permanently on the tub ledge, which I shall do starting tonight.
After I climb into bed, Casey and I adjust ourselves to the perfect cozy position with his chin on my thigh. At once, I remember that I forgot to charge my phone. Now that I’m upright with phone in hand, it’s hard not to play one last round of Words With Friends.
I might as well pee again in the hope that this will be one of the rare nights I don’t interrupt my slumber to empty my bladder. Casey and I readjust, but it’s never quite as good as it was a few minutes earlier when we first settled in.
I read for seven minutes, not that I’m counting, but that is always how long it takes till my eyelids droop, maybe because I once read that it’s a good sign if you fall asleep within seven minutes. I check the time, 2:14, and set my mental alarm for at least eight hours from now. I close my eyes and imagine myself awakening at 10:14, excited by the prospect of doing a better job of writing. But I’m more excited for the evening, when I can count on myself to get things done.
How do you manage to get things done? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
See my Life Goes Strong articles:
By susan fishman orlins
Recently, while sipping breakfast coffee, I commented on a New York Times article about, among other things, connecting with friends,“The Flight From Conversation” by MIT professor Sherry Tunkle. Her first paragraph goes like this:
“We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.”
Though I am guilty of sacrificing conversation for mere email connection, I too lament the flight from conversation. I commented that being at my laptop feeds the pleasure center of my brain, as any addictive substance would. After I have been out for the day, my heart races to return home and check my email.
I am not part of the walk-and-text culture. I’m barely part of the text culture. As a writer, who lives alone, it’s my laptop that has become one of my best friends.
I still talk on the iPhone, mostly to dear ones who live afar. Indeed, those iPhone convos are more satisfying and memorable than email.
All of this makes me think of my friend, Louisa, who—like me—lives alone; she makes it a point to call at least one person every day.
Louisa saw my comment in on the New York Times Website and emailed me her system for keeping in touch. Fascinated by how effective and detailed her method is, I want to share it with you:
My rule is I have to speak on the phone to at least one non-family-member friend every day. If a friend calls me and I answer the phone, that works.
A few resolutions of the gray areas:
(1) Speaking into someone’s voice mail fulfills the requirement. However, I allow voice mail messages for no more than three days a week.
(2) When outside the US or Canada, I’m excused.
(3) Colleagues count as friends only if I feel close to them and they have voluntarily given me their cell phone numbers. I have four people in that set.
(4) If I do more than one call a day I can carry over the second call for the next day’s credit, but I can do a carryover no more than once a week.
Call me crazy but it works. One of the best lifestyle decisions I’ve ever made.
On a related note, one evening I was at the symphony by myself and the woman next to me, another solo type, noticed I was on the iPhone all the time. She too said that devices are killing the art of conversing in public. I wanted to say that I wasn’t so bad because I was Googling bits of classical music trivia I wanted to know (Is Renee Fleming older than I? What operas did Handel write?), rather than typing emoticons to disembodied friends. But is that really better than texting or Facebooking? No.
Louisa’s method of connecting appeals to me not only for its quirkiness, but also for the human contact it provides; I am a pack animal, who—in addition to living alone—works alone. Still, I worry about keeping up with everyone I care about, a virtual impossibility without email.
 My own rules for human contact are similar to Louisa’s, except I try to get together with someone in person each day: for a walk, dinner, therapy.
Sometimes I become overwhelmed with all those I’d like to remain in touch with; a mental picture emerges of my arms filled with more friends than I can hold, some spilling over, as if I were trying to carry more apples than the skirt of my apron could hold. When I have nothing scheduled, I walk with a friend via cell phone. (Does anyone talk on the phone without doing something else at the same time?)
There are those who are content with a handful of close friends. But I’m greedy. I hoard confidants, the way I’ve saved every letter I’ve ever received, except once when I was cleaning a closet more than a dozen moves ago and threw away armfuls of mail, which I regret.
I reflect on the dear friends I have accumulated since my divorce. Were I still married, I never would have had time to cultivate those friendships. Take Louisa, for example. We met biking on a Backroads trip, something I started doing after dissolving my nuptial vows.
How do you manage to keep in touch? Anyone out there who single tasks while talking on the phone?
Check out my articles on Home Goes Strong:
By susan fishman orlins It all started after my friend Chris emailed me a link for the Pitchapalooza, which was to occur the following week at Politics & Prose, D.C.’s independent bookstore that hosts frequent book talks by bestselling authors.
Twenty writers would be chosen randomly to give one-minute pitches of their unpublished books. The lucky 20 would receive feedback—“American Idol” fashion (sans Simon)—from the authors of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published as well as from guest panelists, which included a literary agent.
Given my attraction to scaring myself to death by performing for audiences, this was my meat.
Let’s pause here to note that tied with my fantasy of getting published in the New Yorker, is giving a book talk at P & P, if had a book. (If we had bacon, we could have bacon and eggs, if we had eggs.)
Already deep in the throes of writing my memoir, I thought, What an opportunity! Followed by: What if I win? Will an agent make me rewrite my book? What if I don’t even get chosen to pitch?
I had a million questions about the event, three of which I sent in an email to the bookstore, who forwarded it to the authors:
Will it help my chances if I arrive early?
How many writers typically sign up for the 20 slots?
Will we know ahead of time whether we’ll be called or will we be thinking the whole time, “Yikes, I could be next!”?
Author Arielle replied that arriving 20 minutes before the start would be fine. She also said I could look forward to the “adrenaline rush” of “sitting on pins and needles all night,” because I would be called only if/when it was my turn.
Oy, I thought. But really, how many people in D.C. were going to turn out to pitch their books? And I’d only have to get through one minute. I wasn’t going to over-worry this, wasn’t going to put wine in my water bottle to calm my nerves at the Pitchapalooza.
Over the next six days, I worked on little besides trying to unearth the ideal 200 words and arrange them in perfect order.
 Casey Listening I read my pitch to each of seven friends, three daughters and, 10 times a day, to Casey. After each shard of feedback, I tweaked.
On Pitchapalooza day, I was still re-writing and reciting. I added and deleted bits about my dying mom, my daughter’s lost bear and my travel smoke alarm.
I went back and forth between a fantasy of not getting chosen and one in which I end up with a book deal as well as a movie contract.
I dressed in my usual black and white and put on my new bright yellow high tops—the Price Is Right of outfits—fun enough to get noticed without going over the top. Since author Arielle Eckstut co-founded LittleMissMatched, I decided to wear mismatched socks, believing Arielle would notice and be impressed. But all my interesting socks were in the laundry.
Before rolling out the door on my bike, I emailed my pitch to myself in case I were to lose the two copies I had printed out.
I’d had the entire day to be ready on time and arrive 20 minutes early, as planned. But lateness always happens, and I arrived seven minutes before show time; all seats were occupied, people were standing everywhere and the book was sold out (buying the book was required for participants).
A store employee collecting names of prospective pitchers must have detected an aghast look on my face. He stuck a card in my hand and told me I could qualify by hurrying to the cashier and paying to reserve a book.
“How many people have signed up?” I asked. He told me more than 60 writers were vying for the 20 spots.
With trembling fingers I scratched my name on the card and scrunched it, so it would stand out from the others and have a better chance of getting chosen. (At the time I felt okay doing that, but now that I’m exposing myself, I’m worried. Was I cheating? It’s not as bad as sneaking ahead in the left-turn lane, when you know you’ll be driving straight, is it?)
 Yellow Shoes After reserving my book I found a spot on the floor near the front and leaned against a bookshelf, my yellow high tops extended in front of me.
The first name called was not mine, nor was the second, nor the 17th
Writers pitched and on my laptop I typed notes from the panelists’ critiques:
What is the story arc? How does this change the hero?
Because it’s a memoir about her mom, it will get them on TV
Pugs are good—dog books sell!
Single spinster—good but can’t be both memoir and self help.
Something redemptive.
Oh dear, I’m thinking, Where is my arc? Mom is dead. I have no pug. Single spinster, got that one nailed. Something redemptive—must add that now.
And I began adding something redemptive to my pitch.
“Susan Orlins.”
OMG, that’s me!
I took my laptop rather than my printed notes to the lectern. As I read, I tried not to trail off at the end of sentences:
Confession. I’m a worrywart. In my MEMOIR, Confessions of a Worrywart, I worry about everything from my DOG’S self-esteem to decapitation by ceiling FAN.
A friend calls some of my worries, White Girl Worries, and I WORRY ABOUT THAT.
BUT my anxiety ALSO extends to the COMPLICATED TERRITORY of relationships: with my mother, daughters, ex-husbands, boyfriends and therapists, who are like boyfriends, but who can’t dump ME.
I am more Nora Ephron than Dr. Phil. I blog about worry, then I WORRY ABOUT BLOGGING.
After I looked up an old beau in Paris, he took me to lunch where he choked on a chicken bone. He left abruptly and WENT MISSING for two days; I thought he had died. It would have been my fault FOR TRACKING HIM DOWN.
When your daughter is in Colombia and hasn’t tweeted all day, IS IT EVERY MOTHER’S tweetmare that her kid is locked in the TRUNK OF A SEDAN?
After my divorce, I began searching for my popular, pre-marriage self. After an imaginary encounter with her, I no longer yearn (They stopped me right here mid-add-on sentence. Ordinarily I would never have started two sentences in a row with “after” . . . just sayin’) to be that shallow.
Mothers and others can identify with my real worries and smile at my IMAGINED FEARS.
Who knew it could be SO MUCH FUN TO WORRY?!
Everyone laughed. The panelists said they loved it. They said my pitch got weak at the end, which was the “redemptive” bit I had added right before they called on me. They said my book would be in the humor section. I said something about my essays, because personal essays are my genre—funny at times, but not “humor,” not Erma Bombeck.
“Don’t say ‘essays!’” the four panelists cried in unison. Apparently publishers disdain the word.
There had been so many good pitches that it took several minutes until the authors agreed on a winner, who would receive an introduction to an agent. “And the winner is . . . .” Not me.
The winner’s pitch was good, about his great uncle who was a sociopathic doctor. Among other things, the uncle cut off limbs, for example, of someone with an amputation fetish.
Before leaving, I approached the literary agent from the panel to say one of her clients is my friend. At the same moment, she was approaching me. “I want you to send me something ,” she said as she handed me her card.
I won after all! I thought as I floated out the door and onto my saddle.
The evening had gone so well that I worried I would get in a bike crash on my way home. But I didn’t. Then I unlocked my door all ready to say to Casey, “There you are, There you are,” at a high-pitch, they way I always do when I get home.
But Casey wasn’t there; I realized I’d gotten home safely, because the disaster in store for me—to offset my rousingly successful night—was that my Casey had died while I was gone.
Then, there he was, there he was . . . in his rarely-used doggie bed; I had dodged two bullets.
The next day, I sent the agent a few chapters and links to some of my blog posts. I haven’t heard back and I keep thinking how different they are from the one-liners in my pitch.
I also sent a thank you email to the authors, David and Arielle. Arielle replied appreciatively and then asked where I had gotten my yellow shoes.
Anyone else have anxiety about public speaking? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
Check out some of my Home Goes Strong articles:
NEW POST:
By susan fishman orlins
With the kerfuffle about Ann Romney having been a stay-at-home mom, I thought I would chime in about stay-at-home moms.
There is no question that it is a luxury to have even had the choice. When my first daughter was born, I was a stockbroker for Morgan Stanley, making more money than my lawyer husband. I began working at home for a few months, keeping my options open, even as I felt in my gut that I just wanted to stay home with my baby.
My husband thought I should continue working. It wasn’t about the money and—funny-peculiar enough—I don’t recall discussing with him why he thought I should continue working.
Was it because my having a big job elevated him in other people’s eyes? That’s what happened with a boyfriend I had after divorcing that husband. Boyfriend Daniel took me to meet his elderly uncle, with whom he was very close.
“What should I say you do?” Mr. Daniel Wrong asked me.
Really? I was doing what I do now, writing, but at that time my free-lance articles appeared sporadically in print, unlike now, when they appear on the Internet three days a week (on my blog and on Home Goes Strong).
He was embarrassed that I did not have a more impressive label than free-lance-writer-who-publishes-occasionally.
Back to stay-at-home Sue. Half-heartedly, I pondered the question of going back to the office. The stay-home deal got sealed one day when I received a visit from a friend, Rita.
“You can always go back to work if you want after your kids start school,” said Rita. “But you will never get these early years back again.”
Of course I’m worried that someone will read that and feel bad, someone who doesn’t have the choice I had. Rita’s words were obvious, but hearing them from her made my choice clear.
That said, plenty of people who did have the choice were happier working than sorting socks and playing Happy Happy Hippo all day.
I stayed home for myself, not for my kids, though in later years they said they were glad I had been there. I know adults who feel the same way about the nannies who raised them.
The best reason I could think of to go back to work was for cocktail parties. When asked what I did, I would be able to respond with something other than the conversation stopper, “I’m a mom.”
Just like, in my opinion, the best thing about going to a name-brand college or university is that, for the rest of your life, when people ask, you get to say “I went to Name Brand.” It’s a short cut way of saying “I’m smart.” You don’t have to work at letting people know.
Similarly, a stay-at-home mom is assumed [fill-in-the-blank] till proven interesting.
I’d love you to share your thoughts and experiences.
Check out some of my Life Goes Strong articles:
By susan fishman orlins Today was a day off from worry at the Easter Egg Roll 2012 for both POTUS and me. The sun shown on the White House lawn and some 30,000 visitors got to frolic and glimpse the First Family.
Most children seemed to be having a swell time, the parents were the happiest people there, and President Obama’s khakis were a perfect fit.
IMHO we have not had such charismatic residents in the White House since the days of JFK. And though Kennedy was the ultimate charmer and his wife was beautiful, the Obamas have charm, beauty and one more thing: Their family—as a whole and individually—exudes happiness, contentment, self-assurance and togetherness. They seem to genuinely like one another.
Enjoy this visit to Easter Egg Roll 2012!
 
 
 
If you have a moment, I’d love to hear your thoughts about the occasional photo show like this one. I have pictures I took of some outrageous hats from the Fifth Avenue Easter Parade Sunday in New York.
See my new article:
And, in case you haven’t seen these dazzling eggs:
By susan fishman orlins  The To Do List Dear Susan,
I should be working now but instead I’m writing to you. You see, I’m a procrastinator. Please help me stop putting things off!
Signed,
Puttingthingsoff in Peoria
Dear PiP,
I’m so glad you asked. I am great at procrastination. Here is one thing I do to procrastinate:
I check Twitter to see if anyone retweeted my tweets and who new is following me. Finally I consulted my go-to cognitive therapist for help with the Twitter addiction. I had to go cold turkey to give up reading my tweeps’ tweets.
The problem with not procrastinating is that whenever I do plunge into a project, it creates even more work. *Take for instance the rare closet go-through. I end up with a pile to give away, a pile for alterations and the dreaded maybe pile, all of which creates more things to put off than I started with.
On a positive note, when it comes to tasks like answering mail, if you wait long enough, they no longer require action.
I thought it might be useful to see what others have said about procrastination.
- “The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up.” ~Author Unknown
- “If it weren’t for the last minute, I wouldn’t get anything done.” ~Author Unknown
- *”Every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven fresh duties at its back.” ~Charles Kingsley
- “One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.” ~Vincent T. Foss
- “There’s nothing to match curling up with a good book when there’s a repair job to be done around the house.” ~Joe Ryan
- “You know you are getting old when it takes too much effort to procrastinate.” ~Author Unknown
- “I do my work at the same time each day – the last minute.” ~Author Unknown
- “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” ~Mark Twain
Now, if you still don’t want to procrastinate, here are some suggestions:
- Prioritize a to do list. And then, try not to do what I do, which is to perform the easy, non-urgent tasks, so I can get the thrill of crossing them off the list.
- Make a list of distractions, and then consult the distraction list to reward yourself for getting something done.
- Decide how often you will allow yourself to receive a distraction reward from the above list; use a timer.
- Try for peer pressure: Find a procrastinating buddy and check in with each other at the end of the day to see how you did.
- Break tasks into smaller, more easily doable, events.
- Eat some chocolate while you work to make it more fun.
- Give yourself an alternative task that needs to be done and choose: I can either do my work to meet my deadline or I can organize my closet. At least you may get an organized closet out of this arrangement, though with the above *caveat.
- Finally, just because something ought to be done, doesn’t mean you have to do it. Will you be happier embracing your Procrastinator and continuing along the slacker path?
- My new Home Goes Strong post may help: How to Reduce Stress at Home.
Check out some of my other articles:
By susan fishman orlins
 You don't need an umbrella all the time Dear Susan,
I have a question…with regards to worry….I am always told that it is futile to worry about things you cannot control…and that worrying is like walking around with an umbrella in case it rains….or it’s like sitting in a rocking chair….it will give you something to do, but won’t get you anywhere….this is of course practical advice….but, unfortunately does nothing for me…I worry from the time I wake up until I am asleep at night….you name it, I worry about it….how can I stop the madness of worrying??
Signed,
Worried in Wisconsin
Dear Worried,
I can relate. Here are some ideas for you to try:
Let’s start with the moment you wake up and begin worrying. Change the channel. In other words break the thought by getting up and doing something else. Or, if you have the luxury of remaining in bed, pick up a book, or turn on the TV.
Keep busy. This is the best antidote to worry. If your mind is focused on something that engages you, you will be distracted from worry. Even playing Words With Friends works for me.
Lower expectations. Highly effective people tend not to be perfectionists.
Worry is addictive, plain and simple. It hits the same pleasure center of the brain as alcohol and other addictive substances. If you are able to control your intake of other addictive substances, then you can control worry in the same way now that you know that when you worry you are feeding the urge to worry even more. Each time you catch yourself worrying, remember again to “change the channel,” break the cycle, do something else.
Make a backup list of pleasant or productive things to think about for when you catch yourself worrying. I often turn my thoughts to a blog post or article I’d like to write.
And when going to sleep at night? Use the backup list to distract yourself from worry. One thing I do sometimes to fall asleep is to mentally list my friends.
W in W, thanks for writing in. Here are some posts that might also help:
The back story:
As ideas do, it popped into my head to try a post that reads like an advice column. So I turned to Cathy, my go-to bFf (best Facebook friend), and her awesome peeps, who are willing to chat whenever I ask; for my article, Relationships: Men Speak out About Sex and More, I used several comments from them.
Do you have a Dear Susan question? If so, please submit it in the comments.
My, ahem, expertise? Hm, I’m good at divorce questions–before, during, after. On parenting, I have hindsight. Packing tips for never having to check luggage. General life style stuff: time-savers (e.g. you can cook spaghetti in a small amount of cold water), memory tricks (like how to remember whether or not you already fed the dog), living a non-stressful life despite being a worrywart.
Full discolsure: the true identity of the worried questioner was Mary in Chicago.
Check out some of my Easter and Passover posts:
*27 Awesome Ways To Dye, Decorate And Display Easter Eggs
By susan fishman orlins  The Age of Aquarius Here is some news I haven’t shared with you yet: I’m writing a book!
I’ll give you a moment to digest what it might be like for a worrywart to write a memoir.
Will this offend? Is that too racy? What will my three 20-something daughters think? Will this come back to haunt me? Is that too boring? Too long? Too short?
For example, I enlisted a former Mr. Wrong to opine on a couple of lines: Here is my email to Mr. W:
Hi W. I’d love your thoughts on this excerpt from a chapter about my Jamaican boyfriend of 40 years ago. Would this be offensive to non-Jews? Here it is:
“Susan,” my father said, sounding graver than I had ever heard him. “You’re going to have to choose him or us. We want what’s best for you, and seeing this boy can only hurt you. You think about it and we’ll call you tomorrow.”
There was nothing to think about. Did my father actually think I would give up my boyfriend just because he was black? Anyway, Dad had to have been bluffing; Jewish parents did not disown their kids–they didn’t even send them away to boarding school.
W replied that he thought it was good, which inspired me to hit him up again for his opinion:
W, One more? A little background–in the story I make it clear that Chev and I had a relationship before we jumped into the sack together. Let me know what you think of this excerpt (and let me know if you no longer want to be my compass.):
After we hung up, the phone rang again.. It was my father; he got right to the point.
“Did you have sex with him?”
“Yes.”
“When did you begin having sex with him?”
“On the first date,” I answered, barely audibly, surprising myself with my boldness at having answered at all. It had not actually been a date. Chev and I had been playing tennis together nearly every day for months; on many days we just hung out at the courts for hours. One afternoon we walked to my house for a drink. The next thing I knew we were in my bed, his bony brown hips pressed into my soft white belly.
To this Mr. W replied that the last line reads like a cheap porn novel.
I worried on a couple of counts. Regarding the question in the first email about Jewish parents and boarding schools, the one Mr. W liked, I worried because, like me, Mr. W was Jewish and I realized I needed a couple of Gentiles to weigh in. As for the porn, I needed a focus group for that too. So I sent a group email with the same passages to a handful of friends:
If you have a chance, I’d love your comments. How does this sound to you? Do I sound slutty? Does the last line sound like cheap porn?
Here are a few of their responses:
Not slutty. Jackie
It doesn’t sound slutty. But … do you care if your daughters read this? I’m such a prude… The boarding school line is very funny to us non-Jews. Caren
I find myself trying to figure out how his hips were pressed into your belly. He would seem to have been badly off-center! Bunny
Whew, glad this doesn’t sound slutty to my friends, who were also single during that little window of time after the sexual revolution began and before anyone had heard of AIDS. Oh dear, now it occurs to me that I need a focus group of twenty-somethings. And do I need to clarify that Chev and I were not badly off-center, but that Chev was terribly narrow?
There is the larger picture of how much a writer is entitled to reveal about others, how much one owns one’s own story. Authors expose all kinds of things about parents, ex-husbands and paramours. In her riveting tell-all memoir, At Home in the World, about her affair with J. D. Salinger when she was 19 and Salinger was 53, Joyce Maynard reveals embarrassing details about all three.
Maynard explains in her book’s introduction, “I had always believed I owed [Jerry Salinger] my never-ending silence, loyalty and protection. It came to me as a new thought that the girl he had invited into his life . . . deserved certain things, too.”
As for the “shameful and embarrassing” things she reveals about herself Maynard writes, “I wanted to tell the story of a real woman with all her flaws. I hoped by doing that, others might feel less ashamed of their own unmentionable failings and secrets.”
Joyce Maynard is not worried. In my book, every line gives me something to worry about.
In the comments below, I welcome you to share your thoughts on the Jewish and porn questions, as well as on the kinds of things authors reveal in their memoirs.
Check out some of my Home Goes Strong relationship articles:
*Living Together: Men Speak Out With Advice About Sex and More
*Living Together: Relationship Tips
*Should Couples Have Separate Bedrooms? Readers Responses May Surprise You
Other recent articles:
*The Primal Urge to Eat Bacon: Ways to Enjoy
*Bike Riding Tips for Travel, Safety, Gear, Family Fun and More!
By susan fishman orlins 
You may already know about my infatuation with Gretchen Rubin, who applies her genius to the study of happiness.
It would take a village for me to accomplish all that Gretchen does. In addition to writing books and a Page-a-Day Calendar, she maintains The Happiness Project blog and manages her Facebook Fan page, where she asks things like what is your favorite number and 213 people reply.
On my Facebook page I ask things like “How do you place toilet paper in the holder? With the paper coming from the top or bottom?” and two people reply.
Gretchen also created The Happiness Project Toolbox with a mind-boggling assortment of tasks to help you become happier: resolutions, group resolutions, one-sentence journal (I tried this one), and secrets of adulthood, to name a few; and then these tools have tools.
“If you wake up feeling yucky . . .” she has a solution. How does she do all this?
Moreover, you can email Gretchen to get all kinds of things, such as Gretchen’s personal Resolutions Chart for inspiration. She has her own YouTube channel! I could go on, but I’ll mention just one more thing, the daily Moment of Happiness email I receive from Gretchen.
Here is today’s:
“Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.”
— Benjamin Franklin
*If you enjoy these emails, please forward one to a friend.
You see that asterisk at the bottom? She knows how to promote herself in a way that makes you admire her. By contrast, at the bottom of each of my blog posts, I clock you in the head with an arms-length list of links to articles I’ve written. At times, I copy Gretchen’s idea of saying “It’s Share With a Friend Day!” imploring my readers to share the link to my blog with friends.
By the way, Gretchen is no lightweight, having been, among other things, Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal and having clerked on the Supreme Court for Sandra Day O’Connor. She pursues happiness with an intelligence and gusto that must also have led to her success in previous careers.
For Gretchen, every Wednesday is tip day; copycatting, I started having tip days, which occur randomly, when I think of it. Mine of course are worry tips, which are close cousins to happy tips. If you eliminate worry, you’ll be happier, right?
So today I am combining the best of Happiness guru Gretchen Rubin: Tip Day along with a Moment of—in this case—Worry . . .
First a smidge of background. I generally do not wake up feeling yucky. My bedroom has sunlight and my Casey, snoozing in a sprawl beside me, gives me something to smile about. But then, lest I become too jolly, I (sometimes) remind myself of all that could go wrong. (I added “sometimes,” because if I tell you that I always do this,my brain will believe it and become set to do this kind of worry. Worry Tip #1: Avoid brain-setting.) Recently I wrote a piece called Easy Meditation, in which I shared a method I heard about on NPR. The author talked about allowing thoughts to pass through your mind like clouds. So now, when I awake–or any time bad, mad, sad things visit my thoughts–I try to allow them to come and go like passing clouds. (Tip #2)
Two More Worry Tips:
- Take a Moment of Worry each morning and then tell yourself to be done for the day.
- Or, and I may have mentioned this before, make an appointment with yourself to worry later, say at six o’clock in the evening. When the assigned time arrives, you may not feel like worrying at all!
How do you manage your worry?
And now for what Gretchen would call Shameless Self Promotion:
Did I mention that today is Share With a Friend Day (Facebook, Twitter, email, LinkedIn, Pinterest)?
Check out my lastest Home Goes Strong article, Roasted Vegetables.
I had the privilege of interviewing Gretchen, who shared lots of Happiness tips:
*Happy Home, Part 1: How To Be Happier At Home, A Conversation With Happiness Project Expert Gretchen Rubin
*21 Ways To Remember Practically Everything!
*How Couples Resolve The Thermostat Wars & Other Domestic Battles
*Aphrodisiac Foods & 7 Easy, Delicious Recipes To Give Your Libido A Boost
*Brain Food . . . 5 Delicious, Easy Recipes
- Author’s note: It would probably take the rest of the day to figure out why there is formatting glitch on this page. I’d like it to be perfect, but if you’ll allow me one more tip–which I learned when my ex ran for Congress–it’s a good idea to drop the last 15% of perfection. I’ve noticed that letting go of perfection is a habit of highly successful, less-stressed individuals.
By susan fishman orlins 
It’s a common occurrence in New York and other cities. You put your key in the lock of your apartment building and someone is about to follow you inside.
What do you do? Usually in the interest of security I ask if the person lives there and then request they use their own key or buzz the person they are visiting.
It happened to me a few days ago. A tall, handsome black man, somewhere around my daughter’s age of 29, follwed me through the first of two locked doors to my daughter’s building in New York City. Several things whizzed through my mind.
Mainly I thought, Will he think I’m a white woman not letting him in because he’s a black man?
Nonetheless, I asked, “Do you live here?”
In a pleasing Obama-like voice he replied, “No, I’m visiting my friend in 5D.”
“Would you mind asking your friend to buzz you in?” I said.
“Not at all,” he said.
And I headed upstairs to quickly drop off my laptop and pick up my jacket before meeting my friend for a day of biking in Queens and Brooklyn. I also wanted to get a snack during my discretionary five minutes.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about that attractive guy in a sweater and down vest and wondering how he felt about my not opening the door to the building for him.
I decided to forgo the salad, chocolate and glass of milk I had counted on scarfing down. Instead, I grabbed my jacket, bounded up to the 5th floor and rang the buzzer of 5D, while running through various permutations of gender and race and how I would have responded to each combination.
I egged myself on, knowing that a story for me to share with you was in the making.
A white guy named Matt answered the door. Still panting from racing up the steps, I asked if I could speak to his friend that a few minutes ago I didn’t let into the building.
“Sure come in,” said Matt.
“Hi, I’m Susan,” I said.
“I’m Shawn,” said Shawn in the soothing voice. “Nice to meet you.”
I handed Shawn my card and told both of them, “I’m a writer and I’m wondering if I can ask you a question about what happened downstairs.”
“Sure,” said Shawn.
I told him I felt bad not letting him in and wanted him know it wasn’t because he was black; I added that I felt bad because, as a black man, he must often run into suspicious white people.
And then I ran through a few permutaions.
“It would have been easier,” I said, “to not let in a white man.” No guilt. I would not have given that another thought.
Maybe I would have let a white woman in without questioning, though the previous day a white woman closed the door on me while I was fumbling for my key.
I later realized I hadn’t mentioned the black woman option; did that omission suggest a bias in me? Would I have admitted a black woman? In general, I’m more intimidated by women, so on that alone I’d be more inclined to let a female in. I wouldn’t want a woman, black or white, mouthing off at me.
 Where Shawn and I are from Shawn said, “I didn’t think about it at all.”
I started to mumble something about living in New York or DC, where my home is, there is so much more blending of races and Shawn said “Oh, I’m from D.C.” and I asked what he did and we three morphed into stop-and-chat chatter.
Already running well beyond my discretionary five minutes, I asked Matt if he knew my daughter, who also lives in the building, and he said, “No, is she single?”
She is. And I wondered whether Shawn was single.
Soon thereafter I had to leave. While pedaling along First Avenue to the Queensboro Bridge, I thought about how rewarding it is to take a moment that could have been nothing more than breezing by a guy in an entryway and make it into a story, in this case, one that challenged my assumptions.
Of course, I’m worried I’ve said something racially offensive here. Sometimes I need to ask a black friend if something I say or think is acceptable, the same way I sometimes have to read New York Times editorials to know what I think.
What do you do when someone is about to follow you into a locked apartment building? Do you act differently based on their gender, race, appearance, smooth voice, etc.?
Check out some of my recent articles on Home Goes Strong:
*BEST BANANA CAKE RECIPE EVER! CHOCOLATE CHIPS OPTIONAL
*SUPERBOWL PARTY AND POTLUCK RECIPES AND IDEAS
*EASY, HEALTHFUL CHINESE FOOD RECIPES
*SHOULD COUPLES HAVE SEPARATE BEDROOMS? READERS RESPONSES MAY SURPRISE YOU
*NEW GREAT IDEAS FOR COOKING FISH AND HOW TO ORDER FISH & SEAFOOD ONLINE
*TOP 10 WAYS TO WIN AT SCRABBLE AND WORDS WITH FRIENDS
By susan fishman orlins My New Year’s resolution is to learn how to play Angry Birds.
But an essay in the New York Times suggests that daydreaming increases creativity. Daydreaming requires time, time I dump into playing Words With Friends.
Words With Friends, though, is more than just words. It’s confirmation that my sister, my nieces, my colleague, my daughters and the guy whose name I got from the hardware store to hang my daughter’s curtains are out there, connected to me. I also play Words With Friends with a friend.
Playing WWF helps make me patient in checkout lines and waiting rooms. Deep in the night before going to sleep, I go into such hyper-focus that I wouldn’t notice if a squirrel were in the house, especially if I were struggling–as I am now–to find a 7-letter word with the letters R-T-S-A-Blank-S-D-P that does not end in S.
This is not conducive to sleep.
My fellow Life Goes Strong blogger Irene Levine (Don’t you love names that rhyme? I had a history teacher named Mr. Prusan and the boy who sat next to me fantasized I would marry Mr. P and become Susan Prusan) . . . Irene, whom I’ve never met, wrote about her addiction to Words With Friends. So I commented “Irene, I want to play with you. I’m on my way to addiction . . . .”
We started playing and because she wrote about getting up in the night and checking her games. I worried I would do that too; a worrywart worries about catching other people’s worries.
Irene wrote another post, about a couple meeting on Words With Friends and getting married; she mentioned me in that post, pointing out, “You can learn a lot about someone’s character from playing together. You get a glimpse of their intellect, reliability, tenacity, sociability — and sleeping habits. Susan, like me, is a night owl.”
Maybe if I spent less time playing Words With Friends I would have daydreamed my way into enough creativity to say something similarly insightful.
In yet another article, Irene wrote how a stranger playing Words With Friends and chatting with her opponent saved the life of a man halfway around the world.
It made me want to play with a stranger, so I signed up for a random opponent. I got username zyngawf_23083873. We just started our game, but I sent a message to say “Hi zyng. Where r u from?” I’m hoping for a story to emerge from our relationship and if it does I’ll definitely let you know.
Meanwhile, I’m rethinking my New Year’s resolution. I still want to learn Angry Birds but I resolve to play it only after I daydream.
What is your New Year’s Resolution? And what have you learned about people by playing Words With Friends? Saved any lives? Met any spouses?
See my recent Home Goes Strong articles:
By susan fishman orlins When I, always the initiator, smile at a stranger and the stranger smiles back, it puts a musical note in my step. Or in my pedal, as was the case on Christmas Eve day.
I was on a long bike ride from New Jersey to Staten Island and, when a driver stopped to allow me to cycle across the street, I smiled.
He smiled back, and when I mouthed “Merry Christmas,” his grin broadened, then he wished me the silent same.
Maybe it was due to the season to be jolly that our connected smiles filled me with an extra dollop of glee.
 The demi-smile Sometimes, upon passing a stranger on the street, I exhibit the demi-smile. If the stranger does not return the greeting, then I’ll appear to have been deep in thought or to have been pressing my lips together as part of a squint on a sunny day.
The demi-smile is also useful on social occasions, as it helps smoothe out upper lip lines, lift the jowls, and minimize Howdy Doody creases that flank the mouth.
When my youngest daughter was in high school, she wrote an essay called “Smiling Stranger,” about how she loves to go jogging and smile at everyone she passes and how it cheers her when they respond in kind.
She, typically of limited memory, recalled a joyful moment more than a decade earlier when she was in the single digits, agewise. We were in Hong Kong, and we passed a bus, and she locked eyes with a passenger on that bus, and they both smiled.
It may seem counterintuitively sunny for a worrywart like yours truly to seek every opportunity to exchange smiles with strangers. But a friendly encounter with someone unknown to me is uncomplicated and distracts me from whatever worry I’m dwelling on, if only temporarily.
I have a fantasy of being like a lady I read about, who made coffee for her burglar and convinced him to mend his ways.
(But not like the woman who turned up in a Google search: “Woman captures Burglar, Makes him a sex slave, Fed him Viagra and water for 3 days, ‘until he learned his lesson.’”)
 About to be sipped Here’s how another friendly fantasy goes: I own my own coffee place and every morning I greet my regulars with a smile. Problem is I stay up late and could never get up that early. So maybe I could just get a job in a coffee place. But I might not want to go every day. Then I always arrive at the same conclusion, that I can just go to a coffee place and sip a cappuccino.
Studies say married people and those with pets live longer. It’s the interaction with other living creatures. A writer spends a lot of solitary time, which pleases me, and I believe that a snoozing hound balled up against my hip, as well as an encounter with one friend or another every day, will extend my life.
And on the days I don’t see a friend, I’m counting on smiling strangers to help me outlive actuarial predictions and get my face on the Smucker’s jelly jar for living into triple digits.
How do you interact with strangers? Are you a smiler? A schmoozer? An avoider?
See my latest Home Goes Strong articles:
TOP 10 WAYS TO WIN AT SCRABBLE AND WORDS WITH FRIENDS
ORGANIZING YOUR AFFAIRS BEFORE YOU DIE: ADVICE FROM A 29-YEAR-OLD ORPHAN
BEST SPAGHETTI SAUCE EVER!
By susan fishman orlins In my post My Year of Blogging, I noted that writing personal essays involves catching yourself in the act of thinking and then exposing and exploring it on the page.
Here’s something I do every single day, and it was not until this morning that I caught it in my consciousness as something to write about.
I have a drawer stacked with undies of assorted stripes, dots and colors. More than once I’ve pondered how it would save time if all my clothes were black and even all the same, so I would never have to decide what to wear from the meager, tattered wardrobe of one who detests shopping.
I have more variety in my undies than I do in my closet, so each day, I have to figure out which underpants to wear. (Full disclosure: this photo is not me.)
When going out, I feel more attractive in black undergarments; other times, I’m after something more upbeat in a pantie.
On a regular day–during which my interaction with life on this planet consists of a game of catch with Casey, which will last for one throw, as he hasn’t yet got the hang of giving back–I give deeper thought to which underpants to wear.
My choice depends on my mood. If I’m afraid of feeling glum, I’ll wear one of my faves, such as the green striped ones my fashion-plate daughter once complimented.
The ones with light gray stripes would also cheer me up without making me feel clownish, the way the ones with little orange and green dots would. What ever possessed me to buy these dotted ones? They looked so cheery on the table at The Gap.
The thing about the light gray striped ones, though, is that I really, really like them, so I avoid them the way I avoid all my favorite things. I wear them mainly when I’m with my kids. They make me happy and they also seem cool; I remember my daughters wearing similar patterns when they were younger.
Then there are the gray underpants. Very sporty. Good for all occasions, except that if my calendar is blank with nothing special to look forward to, I wouldn’t want to wear gray, which could further promote a gray outlook. That said, if I awaken feeling a bit glum, I don’t want happy underwear, nor do I like a sunny day when I’m blue; in both cases, the contrast is too great. Those are the days to wear mood-neutral pale blue.
My writing mentor Phillip Lopate always told me “Think against yourself.” So here goes: What if I were to wear the goofy dotted unders on a dinner date? I’m not expecting to get seduced, but still.
Why do we wear attractive underwear if no one is going to see it?
The question of why I put on earrings during a day when my only plan is a game of catch with Casey is more easily answered. I wear earrings and a dab of makeup every day, because I still have to pass by a mirror and I prefer to not be aghast upon a glimpse of my reflection. I simply feel better if I think I look okay.
Maybe the whole notion of wearing happier underwear is akin to the idea that if you smile, even if you don’t feel smiley, it will help to make you feel more smiley. Or maybe I just cooked that up.
And maybe that’s the point. I cook up a notion and then I live by it and that seems to be a dandy plan.
What quirky things like pondering which underwear to wear do you do, or maybe this isn’t quirky at all? Let me know!
Heartfelt thanks to all who have read my posts in 2011. I wish you happiness and peace in the new year!
See some of my Home Goes Strong articles, which may trigger some New Year’s Resolutions:
By susan fishman orlins  One day, after hours of sliding my cursor from Twitter to Facebook to Stats for my blogs and back to Twitter, when I should have been writing, I emailed Dr. M, a cognitive therapist.
Dr. M had previously helped me understand that worry is an addiction; it hits the same pleasure center of the brain that other addictions, such as alcohol, do.
The more I worry, the more it reinforces me to worry; ever the pleasure-seeker, I worry more and perpetuate the cycle. Yet, once I understood the worry addiction, I worried less. While I am inclined toward overindulging in pleasurable activities (In my mother’s words. “Susan, you’re an extremist!”), I am also driven to avoid the consequences, in the quest for maximum, well, pleasure.
It took only one hangover to make me decide never to experience that feeling again. My attraction to pleasure also includes never wanting to be full or overweight or slowed down by the effects of smoking.
So, I feel pretty bad at the end of a day spent, not on writing, but on addictive flitting back and forth between Facebook and Twitter, seeking that serotonin surge I get from seeing that someone commented on my fan page or RT’ed my tweet.
Here’s what The Cognitive advised:
1. Give yourself a daily limit for checking Twitter. You can have a chart next to the computer in order to track the frequency. You can
also print the word, “STOP” in bold red at the bottom of the chart to serve as a reminder to stop.
2. Track what increases this particular checking behavior – like any other habit-related or addictive behavior (e.g., consider over-eating), it is important to understand the precipitants.
What emotions, thoughts, and/or behaviors activate your desire to check the Twitter? For instance:
- Do you begin to feel anxious and then check?
- Do you begin to feel bored and then check?
- Do you begin surfing the net and then find yourself having an increased urge to check?
In summary, find out what the precipitants are and begin to modify these to decrease the likelihood of the stats checking behavior.
3. Give yourself a reward for NOT engaging in the behavior. Remember that checking Twitter may be intrinsically rewarding; therefore, every time you check, you get reinforced on the behavior. Replace the reward of checking with another reward.
Thanks Dr. M. Knowing that–every time I look for a retweet–I’m feeding an addiction, helps me re-think doing it so often.
Conundrum: After I tweet the link to this post about Twitter, I’ll be dying more than usual to see if any of the Twitter mavens RT it.
What reward could possibly replace the pleasure of clicking on that little bluebird icon? Please advise in the comments!
Pondering: Given that the Twitter logo is all lower case (twitter), why do the media capitalize it? And, then, why isn’t tweet capitalized too?
Some of my useful holiday posts on Home Goes Strong (worried about my inability to make choices and narrow down this list):
*MAKE A DECORATIVE CHOCOLATE CANDY HOUSE
*WHITE HOUSE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS AND DISPLAYS OF FIRST DOG, BO
*TOP 7 BOOKS TO GIVE AS GIFTS AND TO READ
*EASY, VEGAN (AND DELICIOUS) BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP RECIPE
*TOP 10 WAYS TWITTER CAN HELP PLAN A PARTY FROM RECIPES TO CONVERSATION STARTERS
*ENTERTAINING: HAVING MARTHA STEWART TO DINNER? ENTERTAINING TIPS FROM SOMEONE WHO DID!
*THANKSGIVING: VEGETARIAN RECIPES, CRISP MOIST TURKEY, DESSERT, DIY CENTERPIECES, TABLE SETTINGS, ENTERTAING & DESTRESSING TIPS & MORE!
*10 EASY HEALTHFUL BREAKFAST IDEAS, YUM!
*12 UNIQUE & JAZZY GIFT IDEAS FOR EVERYONE ON YOUR LIST
*CREATE FUN, EASY, NO-BAKE GINGERBREAD HOUSES & A GREAT ICING RECIPE
*GINGERBREAD HOUSES . . . FUN, DECORATIVE & CAN BE MORE THAN A HOUSE
By susan fishman orlins At heart, I’m as much a salesperson as a writer. In 1978, I was recognized by Merrill Lynch for ranking second in opening new accounts among their first-year stockbrokers.
During my next career, back in the days of print, selling my essays was harder. Some of my articles received a dozen or more rejections before getting accepted for publication; some never got accepted.
Blogging of course is easier, with me as both writer and publisher. Yet, just because I post something, doesn’t mean it will get read.
To reach an audience, Twitter and Facebook have replaced the envelope, stamp and cover letter to editors.
Tweeting and posting links to my articles, I serve as my own audience-seeker.
Don’t get me wrong, this game of tracking down new Twitter followers is a lot more fun than waiting to hear from an editor who has no intention of responding to my submission (unless he/she mistakenly believes I’m Susan Orlean).
Every time a new tweep follows me, ka-ching, it give me a charge. I’m a stats person, a math major, a former math instructor.
The fun of being a stockbroker included my attraction to numbers, most thrillingly the bottom line. How much business did I do each month? How high did I rank among the 46 men and 4 women brokers in my office?
And so it is with my blog stats. How many visitors did I have today? How long did they stay? How many Twitter followers dropped me? (What’s the opposite of ka-ching?)
My friend Diane, author of Big Green Purse, is in my writing group and always asks, “Why do you want to achieve this?” of whatever it is I’m doing.
For a pleasure-seeking lowbrow like me, who is hopelessly attracted to tinsel, it’s a hard question to answer more profoundly than to say it feels good. Maybe my drive to feel good is strong in order to help offset my Worrywart.
The other day I met with my writing group. I asked what everyone thought about an email I’d composed to send to a majority of my address book in hopes of increasing my fan base.
Here’s the email:
It’s been a while since I last wrote with a link to one of my articles. Last time, it was late one night that I struggled with the perfect wording to let friends and acquaintances know I’d just posted an aricle on Huffington Post. Then I hit send.
At 3 a.m., before going to sleep, I checked my email; someone had already replied. Yay!
I opened it. “Please unsubscribe,” is all it said.
After that I tried to fall asleep, but wondering how many other people I had annoyed kept me from drifting off. Ever since then I have been light-handed on the send button.
That said, I want to let you know about my new Facebook fan page, where I post links to my articles and welcome conversation. I’d love you to drop in, “like” and chime in with comments.
Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Susan-Orlins-Writer/148063705295883
I hope all is well with you and that you have a splendid holiday season!
Susan
My writing group is generally uber-supportive (“Susan, I can just see that story of your first marriage becoming a movie. Who would you want to play you? What will you wear on the red carpet?”).
But after reading my proposed email blast, they said it sounded “Defensive.” “Bewildering.” “Sad sack.” And, my favorite, “Cringe-worthy.”
I’m afraid you won’t be receiving any late night emails from me anytime soon. (Though you might find me spamming on Twitter.)
I’d love YOU drop in, “like” and chime in with comments on my new Facebook fan page!
What non-email suggestions do you have for increasing my audience and generating more Facebook fans and comments?
Check out my latest Home Goes Strong article:
HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES AND FAMILY TRADITIONS WITH MY ADULT CHILDREN
And some others for the holidays:
IMPROVISE! EASY CHILI RECIPE FROM TWITTER. ADD BEER OR ANYTHING YOU LIKE!
WHITE HOUSE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS AND DISPLAYS OF FIRST DOG, BO
TOP 7 BOOKS TO GIVE AS GIFTS AND TO READ
TOP 10 WAYS TWITTER CAN HELP PLAN A PARTY FROM RECIPES TO CONVERSATION STARTERS
ENTERTAINING: HAVING MARTHA STEWART TO DINNER? ENTERTAINING TIPS FROM SOMEONE WHO DID!
CRISP, GOLDEN POTATO PANCAKE & LATKE RECIPE & HANUKKAH IN FRANCE
By susan fishman orlins Note to those of my peeps to whom Twitterspeak is as foreign as Uz-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan-ese: You may not want to slog through this one. If you do, RT means retweet.
I spend a lot of time on Twitter sharing links to articles I write.
I have cultivated a variety of followers. Yet, how do I hold onto my vegan followers when I tweet a tip about crisp golden turkey skin? It’s a delicate balance.
Will my followers who are writers drop me due to my lowbrow leanings after I tweet a link to a Survivor recap, written by my daughter, the two-time “Survivor” contestant?
Will I ever learn to tweet smarter so I won’t need to read every single one of @TweetSmarter’s tweets, when I ought to be writing instead?
Aren’t I and my obsession with tweeting links to my articles–which distracts me from writing those very articles–just like those travelers who spend all their time recording details with cameras and journals rather than, well, traveling?
What is the Twittiquette (twettiquette?) for using hashtags like #recipes to find foodie Twitter users and then tweeting to several of them the link to my Eating Technique post?
I’ve gained followers doing this, but recently the tactic led to what seemed a troubling interaction with @BuzzEdition.
@BuzzEdition tweeted:
Quick Holiday Appetizers To Make Now & Serve Later! bit.ly/vJRIFm #recipes #holiday
@susanorlins tweeted in reply:
Planning to #eat this #Thanksgiving? Consider technique & share yours! bit.ly/u2C3ER PLS RT!
@BuzzEdition replied (Noteworthy that Buzz has some 66,000 followers):
so basically I’m not someone you want to connect with on twitter, but I am someone you want to spam with RT requests? #NoThanks
@susanorlins replied (mistakenly believing Buzz had asked what people were thankful for, but turns out that was someone else I’d spammed):
Tx for taking time to enlighten me. Still learning the ropes. Happy Thanksgiving. To ans qn, I’m thankful 4 my fam, of course
@BuzzEdition replied:
I am impressed. Thank you for answering. And I wish you and your family a happy holiday!
Enter @RockTique, who has been tweavesdropping:
Sorry to snoop on that little chat there but I’m major impressed w/both of you! #AlwaysLearning 
@susanorlins replied:
Aw kind of you to comment!
Next I get a message that @BuzzEdition is now following me.
I am loving this connection with Buzz and Rock and decide to follow Buzz.
@susanorlins tweets to BuzzEdition (her name is Susan also):
Susan, tx 4 the follow! I’m writing a post abt challenges of Twitter. Wd u mind if I incl our encounter & your twitter name??
@BuzzEdition replies:
Sure, but read this and you will know more about why I did it. bit.ly/ohaoHn
This link is loaded with scary warnings, like Twitter will expel spammers like me.
@susanorlins thanks Buzz:
Tx & tx for the link to your great, helpful post! I’m writing abt all the things that worry me re using Twitter. Lots of qns!
Buzz replies:
Good luck on it…and happy holidays! ~hugs~
Buzz tweeted hugs to me! Aw! Feeling joyful,
@susanorlins replies:
Tx and to you and yours too! I’m thankful to have met you!
Five days go by before I begin spamming again, but this time I either follow each spamee or try to tweet something substantive, other than just my link.
So now I shall tweet the link to this post to @TweetSmarter.
Will @TweetSmarter click on the link? Comment? Will he tweet this to his 306,230 followers? Will it matter? Will I get nearly 1,000 visitors that day and the next day drop back to triple and double digits of visitors?
Hoping my tweeps will chime in with twadvice on tweverything Twitter in the comments below!
Check out my posts on Home Goes Strong:
Top 7 Books as Lasting Gifts and Delightful Holiday Reading
How @Twitter Helped me Plan Thanksgiving . . . Use Twitter for Christmakkah or anytime!
By susan fishman orlins While shops experience brisker business on weekends, blog traffic slows, at least mine does.
So I’m posting this shortie today, hoping for weekend visitors.
What I’m about to write is one of those things I wouldn’t give a second thought to, were I not examining myself all the time for the very
 gaggle of cups on the kitchen counter purpose of writing about it.
The trick is to catch myself either in the act of something quirky or in the act of something everyone does, but no one thinks to talk about, sort of like how we don’t talk about the conversations we have with out dogs.
So here’s what I think is a quirk, but do let me know if you do this too: I save drinking water. Let me explain.
I have these under-the-sink filters that make the Potomac River potable as it comes through my kitchen faucet. I treat this water with the same respect I give my homemade chicken soup.
For one thing, ever since I went four years without realizing I was supposed to change the filters annually—not realizing they were in canisters that were clear plastic, not brown—I try not to tax those filters unnecessarily.
Plus, ever since I got kidney stoned, I drink buckets of water every day, either hot water with lemon or room temp with nothing in it.
So, if I’ve been out with my stainless steel bottle of hot lemon water and now I want to have regular water in that bottle, I pour the remains of the lemon water into a separate cup for later. This routine leads to a gaggle of cups on the kitchen counter.
 Tablescape, Cafe Matisse in Washington, D.C. It’s a similar look to my place setting at restaurants, where I request a half glass of white wine, half glass of red, tap water, fizzy water and sometimes hot water. Oh and a large glass of ice for my white wine.
That’s it for now.
Oh, by the way, do check out my meaty post, Thanksgiving: Moist Turkey, Vegetarian Recipes, Appetizers, Desserts, DIY Centerpieces, Giving Thanks, Entertainment Tips. Just as with my inability to select one color of wine, one flavor of water, I seem unable to narrow down my titles to something pithy.
Do you do hoard water or other things? I’d love to hear about that and other quirks!
By susan fishman orlins  Mom had often complained that I'd thrown away her bag collection when I helped her move. So, for her birthday, we gave her a gift of gift bags . . . and she cracked up. I’m a saver. Every time my inbox mounts to the limit of 4,000 emails, I move a few thousand to random folders I doubt I’ll ever find again; and then I’m set for another few weeks of not deleting messages, mainly from the likes of Sock Hop Sundays, Hot Tub Works and Book TV Alert.
Aside from reminding me of my hedonistic tendencies, keeping these emails relieves the fear I’ll miss something, even though I have never opened a Book TV Alert and I went to Sock Hop Sunday only once.
Someday, after I finish watching all the Oprah episodes saved on my DVR, I may just want to check out Book TV. The emails will serve as a reminder.
Plus, I don’t want to waste time deleting emails or unsubscribing.
The first time I surfed to Book TV, Isabel Allende was speaking about the death of her daughter Paula. She referred to the remarkable ability of the human spirit to rise above adversity. I was going through a divorce at the time and it helped to say to myself, if she can rally after such a tragedy, then surely I can deal with this divorce.
With phone messages, it’s different. I so fear accumulating my kids voices, which are much more precious than emails, that I delete them right away so as not to tempt any hoarding instincts.
A few weeks ago, while visiting my 28-year-old daughter, Eliza, in New York, I listened (except when she made me hold my ears) as she transferred to her computer 20 special voice messages she had saved over time. She was preparing to trade in her Blackberry for an iPhone.
I heard the message from me, singing happy birthday. And then the room filled with the voice most familiar to me, the one I heard for hours every week during long conversations about our lives.
Lizie, it’s Grandmom. The book you sent me, I never laughed so much! (laughter) I laughed out loud the whole time I was reading it. (laughter) I just loved it . . . It was so funny! (more laughter) . . . .
It was only 7 months ago that Lizie asked me to take Shopoholic to my mom in Florida, “I think Grandmom will like it,” she said. Four months later, in early July, my mom died. On Christmas Day my mom would have been 93, the birth date she shared with Eliza.
I didn’t cry when my mom died, just as she didn’t cry when her mother died. My mom and I were/are not criers.
But as each day passes, I miss her more. How she would have loved to hear the details of my interview with TLC’s Georgetown Cupcake sisters about their bakery and their lives!
No one gets excited about what I do each day, the way my mom did.
Every adventure I have, every picture I take, I wish I could share with my mom. Hearing her voice and that laugh—so real, so hearty, so alive—was like having her right there on the sofa with us, making me feel so happy, so sad.
Now that I have this recording of my mom’s voice, I’m wondering whether I should start saving the voicemails of everyone I love. Oy.
What do you do about saving voicemail? Email?
Check out my recent articles on Home Goes Strong:
For links to my latest articles, follow me on Twitter @susanorlins
By susan fishman orlins For my recent article on Home Goes Strong about Happiness at Home, I interviewed my blog crush Gretchen Rubin, whose book The Happiness Project–the same name as her blog–was a #1 New York Times best seller.
 All that goes on underneath my roots Gretchen keeps a one-sentence journal, which she admits sometimes expands to 4 sentences.
Says Gretchen, “The idea of keeping a proper journal was far too daunting, so I decided instead to keep a ‘one-sentence journal.’”
This is me again. Years ago, I gave up journal writing. Between living alone and blogging about my life, I exist so much inside my own head that I’d decided, enough already!
Today, however, I opened my long-neglected journal document and began to write . . .
Thinking about doing a one (or 4) sentence journal a la Gretchen Rubin. This got me thinking about going back to journal writing and seeing what happens. Look at me, here I am in the second sentence of my journal and already it has given me an idea for a WW post about whether or not to journal.
And therein lies the problem of too many ideas.
Question: Is it good or bad that a journal generates a flow of new ideas? Idea management overwhelms me.
When I kept a journal previously, I was always coming up with new projects, like:
- Have a Habitat for Humanity singles party!
- Go polka dancing!
- Play piano, take a painting class, write a children’s book!
As it is, I have no time. Susan’s Law is the opposite of Parkinson’s Law that says, Work expands to fill the available time.
Susan’s Law says, No matter how much time you have, you will always plan more to do than you have time for.
I’ll never finish all there is to do: sew the hole Casey made on the couch, learn to use my new camera, make squash soup.
I love the way starting out to write about one thing brings on a whole other topic. In that way, I’m a psychiatrist’s dream, so to speak. The underlying story finds its way to the surface.
I shall continue to try Gretchen Rubin’s 1-sentence journal, even though it’s so much harder to write one or four sentences than 10 paragraphs where you can just ramble. How do I decide what snippet to capture on the page?
Yesterday, I sat in traffic and was late for the treasured visit of the month to Emily’s kindergarten class [my daughter Emily teaches at 
a charter school]. Worried I’d miss the whole afternoon, I did childbirth breathing to keep calm.
Finally I arrived with a hard-boiled egg and the gizmo I’d bought for making a peeled egg into a cube. I’m not sure if the kids are wise enough to be as wowed as I am by that. At least they were totally engrossed to see what would happen.
Then I read The Golden Egg Book about a bunny and an egg, from which emerged a duckling. “And no one was every alone again.”
I’m pushing the limits of Gretchen’s one-sentence journal, but it’s okay for Susan’s one-sentence journal to be longer.
This is fun! I can’t wait to see what I decide to write in the journal tomorrow.
Hi, this is non-journal me again. Now I’m getting my hopes up that every day a blog post will emerge from my journal. After all, isn’t that what a blog is, a web log?
MORE [too many?] OF MY ARTICLES ABOUT WRITING [When will I ever learn that less is more?]:
By susan fishman orlins When I’m in New York, I like to hang out and write at Jack’s, a coffee place in the West Village with a patina that suggests long afternoons of sipping lattes and tapping on laptops. The overall look is shades of brown, like paper bags and coffee.
Jack’s is so small it has no bathroom. The other day, I had to pee, so I walked up the block and stopped at the first restaurant, a dark Villagey place called Low Country, another brownish space, where I was greeted by–as you can see from his picture–a fit, attractive bald man with smooth, mahogany-colored skin, wearing a dark t-shirt and black blazer.
With a dip of my right eyebrow, a sort of pity look, I asked “Would it be okay if I used the bathroom?” in the way that, when I was in my twenties, got me anything I wanted.
The man responded with a broad white-toothed smile, “Of course.”
In the bathroom, which was papered with pages from a Faulkner paperback, I began thinking about all the kind restaurant hosts who have welcomed me into their bathrooms.
And one who didn’t. It was a few years ago in D.C., up the block from the White House, a mediocre wannabe kind of place with white linen on the tables, where the maitre d’ rejected me. Admittedly, I was mid-bike ride in shorts and sneakers and with sweaty helmet hair.
I then crossed the street to the Bombay Club, an upscale restaurant with fine Indian food, a favorite of the Clintons and some of Washington’s elite journalists.
The maitre d’ welcomed me warmly and led me to the rest rooms. When I returned to thank him, he walked me into the bar and told the bartender to give me a drink.
I must have look pretty pathetic. When I left, I over-thanked him and mentioned, to show I wasn’t just a bathroom moocher, that I had eaten there and that I would be back. The afterglow of his kindness lasts to this day.
Back to Low Country. On the way upstairs from the Faulkner bathroom, I decided to tell the host how much I appreciated his hospitality.
He again graced me with his sparkly smile and introduced himself. We began talking and I told him I was a writer and that I blog, and he said he had recently started blogging. We exchanged cards.
The following day he emailed me:
| Susan,
It’s your new friend Chad from Low Country. Your blog looks really funny! I can’t wait to read some, especially religion.
It was nice meeting and chatting. Let’s meet for lunch sometime and share life. I love meeting new interesting people.
Cheers and make today an amazing day!
Chad
P.S.
Here’s the link to my first blog post! http://www.africa.com/blog/blog,hip_hop_saves_lives_an_introduction,418.html |
He wasn’t hitting on me; he is somewhere around half my age of 65.
Chad and I are different. He’s writing to help people in Chad and Sudan, and my blog is a platform for my white girl worries, which I mentioned when I gave him my card. As for religion, he’s a believer and I get nightmares about the 23rd Psalm.
But back at Jack’s I was sitting on the bench outside when Chad came along to unlock his bicycle, which was parked right next to mine (technically my ex-husband’s that I borrow when I’m in New York).
I’m a schmoozer and a reacher-outer and I love the way Chad wrote “I love meeting new [ahem] interesting people,” expressing his wish to get together. I am going to use that next time I email a maitre d’ or someone else I’m eager to know better.
How do you reach out?
What are your experiences with using restrooms in restaurants where you are not a patron?
If you or someone you know likes cupcakes, don’t miss my article TLC’s Georgetown Cupcake Sisters Share a Chocolate Cupcake Recipe & Their Recipe for Success!
By susan fishman orlins You can tell a lot about a person’s life from the files they have open on their browser.
 Too many tabs Eugene, my computer guy, says I shouldn’t keep so many files open. But like with my desk, if I put things away, I’ll forget about them. So I leave them out and layers of other things gather on top of them and then I forget about them anyway.
Just yesterday, while taking my Organizing Challenge, under a pile on my desk, I found a dress I meant to return back in June.
Similarly, on my browser, I keep Sites open, holding onto the fantasy I’ll get around to reading them:
- An article about devices that help you watch your home from afar
- Twitter so I can check every 20 minutes to see if anyone retweeted my Holy Guacamole! tweet as well as see what my daughters are up to.
- Likewise, a tab to my stats that show how popular my blog posts are and, by association, how popular I am.
- “A Pro Confides his Best Tips for Painting Exteriors” I hope will help me figure out the best painter from the six I’m interviewing.
A tab with a “Consumer Reports” report on point and shoot cameras is open, so I can compare the one I just bought to the ones I didn’t buy. Is it a worrywart thing to seek opportunities for regret (and then regret having done so)?
Also open is Adam Gopnik’s piece about dogs in the “New Yorker.” It’s reassuring to know it is only a click away. But also anxiety-provoking; the tab is a steady reminder I don’t make time to read.
The “New Yorker” Festival Site is open with events ranging from a tasting walk in Greenwich Village with Calvin Trillin to Malcolm Gladwell waxing about The Virtues of Obnoxiousness. If I weren’t commitment averse, I’d buy tickets and close this tab.
Instead, I entered the limerick contest to see if I could win some tickets, which takes the matter out of my hands:
- A writer of wee note I became
- But my dream in this role was not fame (false, but here for the sake of rhyme and meter)
- Nor a view of the High Line
- Nor a New York Times byline
- But on New Yorker Fete’s slate my name.
(Hm, I worry they (and you for that matter) will not get the last line, my dream to be a featured writer in the Festival.)
I could make a file of these links, but I worry I’ll lose my place in the dog article if I close it and who needs one more file to keep track of?
Plus, as with newspapers that pile up, well, you know what happens, I chuck them on recycle day, and then I feel guilty I haven’t read them as well as worried I’ve missed something great.
Eugene is always telling me to reboot my computer more often for it to run its best. So once in a while I summon up the discipline to bid my tabs good-bye, and I log out only to start accumulating all over again, knowing I’ll never remember there was once a really great dog story I didn’t finish.
I’d love to see in the comments below what your open tabs say about you.
Check out my Home Goes Strong articles.
See my latest Huff Po post New York has The Moth, DC has SpeakeasyDC.
By susan fishman orlins My very first Mr. Wrong told me, “Susie, what you need is a purpose.” That was in ninth grade. George, now a retired psychiatrist, was right. The benefits of having a purpose were never more obvious than after I launched my blog.
 Blogging The irony of blogging about being a worrywart, is that it keeps my mind so occupied with what I plan to write that little room remains for maladaptive thoughts.
And blogging has made me aware of so many things I hadn’t previously thought about . . .
* When I saw my niece the morning of my mom’s funeral, we hugged and I said, “I miss you so much!” She replied, “I don’t miss you; I read your blog.”
* My friend Sue, author of the thoughtful interfaith blog On Being Both, told me correctly you’ll spend 1/3 of your time writing, 1/3 of your time posting and 1/3 of your time getting the word out via social networks.
I spend another 1/3 of my time checking my stats: How many visitors to my blog? Did they like me enough to stay for a couple of minutes? Did they come from Twitter or Facebook or Sarahneedsajob.com?
I’ve learned that obsessively checking my stats soothes the same pleasure center of the brain as, say, an addictive numbers game . . . and worry.
* I have learned to let go of the last 15% of time it would to make things “perfect,” otherwise I would never have time to post anything. I learned this 15% rule when my then-husband ran for U.S. Congress.
* One thing leads to another. I launched my blog in June 2010. In July 2010, a friend who liked my blog introduced me to Huffington Post where I published my first Huff Po piece, Travel Tips From a Worrywart.
A month later an editor read on Huff Po my article Turn Chores Into Family Fun and offered me a (paying!) job blogging for NBC’s Home Goes Strong.
* If you can write, you can write about almost anything, as in Composting It’s Easier Than You Think, The Avocado!, as well as people’s personal stories, like Death of a Husband, One Woman’s Story series.
* Some of the thousands of thoughts that go through a person’s mind each day make great opening lines. You just try to be good at catching them.
* Blogging is less lonely than writing for print. Readers comment and I comment back. On twitter, my tweeps retweet or send me messages. For non-virtual human contact, I figure I can always go to the dry cleaner.
* I posted a piece that that offended a friend whose cousin had commited suicide; in the post, Worry Orgasm, I failed to show empathy when someone delayed my train by throwing himself in front of it. An editor might have pointed that out and urged greater sensitivity.
Instead, I made amends in my next post, “Worry Orgasm” Regrets. It was so raw, so non-virtual, this personal experience with my best friend playing out on my blog.
* I don’t know what I would do without my brilliant writing group. In addition to their encouragement (Diane regularly envisions a movie coming out of my blog stories, with Susan Sarandon in the role of me!), they help me write by consensus. If 4 out of 7 don’t like something, I cut it.
* Oy, the things people search for! I am able to see what searches have lead visitors to my blog. Yesterday one search term was “porn yoga” and, today, “I’m worried I have warts.” The interest I have in reading these search terms make me wonder, Am I a Voyeur?
* Because I tweet links to my blog posts, old friends have turned up, like an author whom I French kissed, when I was in 9th grade and he was in 7th.
I look forward to another year of blogging and send gratitude to my readers who make it so damn much fun! XO
I’m told I need to post at least 3 times a week or readers won’t return. I simply don’t have the time to do that. I’d love your comments on this and anything else.
Check out my recent Home Goes Strong posts:
Family Vacation With my Ex and Our Daughters, How we Do it
Bobby Flay’s Upcoming Cookbook, a Preview
By susan fishman orlins The fawns scamper across my backyard like teenagers off to a pep rally. Despite a few scares–days when I didn’t see the
 Mama Deer emaciated-looking mom in my yard–Mama deer has been here too.
But I’m still concerned about her.
After I wrote “Oh Dear, My Deer” about how worried I was for the little deer family, readers’ comments rivaled the debt ceiling negotiations in their diverse perspectives.
On my Facebook wall, one friend wrote “I am so DISTRESSED” and went on to say she hoped I’d been serving milk and cookies to the deer (or something like that; I spent 20 minutes searching for her exact comment.)
By contrast, my friend Jane wrote on my blog:
I can’t believe I’m trying to find ways to keep deer away from my hydrangeas (just bought coyote urine) and my brother never wears short sleeves or short pants because he worries so much about deer ticks and you are encouraging them so close to your house. Deer bring nothing good. Get rid of them! Soon!
Another comment, from my friend Lise, confused me at first: “What is the deer-equivalent of matzoh ball soup?” I thought oh, she wants me to make deer soup. Ew.
But now I realize she was suggesting I make deer-friendly matzoh ball soup to help plump up the malnourished-looking mother deer.
I did not make soup, but I did place in the yard a pan filled with water.
Even though I haven’t seen my dears today, I phoned The Second Chance Wildlife Center, believing that nearly a month is long enough for the deer to be in residence at my residence.
Happily, David Stang answered my call and I couldn’t wait to share the 411 with you!
David first tip is is no such species as deer ticks and in fact, the most common way to get ticks is from mice. I don’t like cats, but I like ticks even less. Is it time to get a kitten?
Also, if you want to keep the deer from eating your azaleas, try feeding them deer chow, which they may like better. Just buy a bag for $10 and scatter it on your lawn.
David had great news for Casey, who has been banned from even the front yard, because it has deer droppings that he likes to eat. Deer droppings, according to David won’t hurt him. “It’s like putting some hay in the blender,” he said.
Severa; deer wizards have advised me to leave the yard gate open so the deer will leave. I asked David what he thought about leaving the gate open. He replied, better to keep it closed; they can jump the fence if they want and the closed-in yard will protect them from dogs (and I’m thinking coyotes).
David noted he would be pleased if a deer family like mine were to settle in his yard.
 one of the teen twins; blurry I know--I have a tremor So I can sit back and enjoy my deer, though now I’m worried they’re off to greener pastures, as I haven’t seen them all day 
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: SEE MY FAVE HEALTHY RECIPES
By susan fishman orlins Saturday, July 2, 2011
Mother died today. I am not trying to channel Camus, just trying to make sense of how it feels to suddenly become a 65-year-old orphan in New York while my mom’s cold body lay in Philadelphia.
I’m sitting in Union Square, one of my favorite places to work when I visit New York. The usual bustle is going on around me: a pair of Boston terriers rollicking in the dog run and the farmer’s market actively trading consumables, like the quart of organic skim milk in a glass bottle I bought to go with the chocolate chip banana cake I brought here in my bike basket.
A church group on a neighboring bench is painting their faces red white and blue for their annual pamphlet giveaway to promote patriotism and Christ. We take a picture together, my first thought being I can’t wait to show Mom, even as I know from my brother’s phone call an hour ago that, with her hand in his, my mom had just taken her last breath.
I so wanted to be there with her, but one never knows when the end will happen. I knew she was in the homestretch and, though I saw her last week, I figured she would hold tight until my visit tomorrow.
It’s comforting that I spent so much quality time with Mom, yet would a better daughter, knowing she was rapidly failing, have rushed to her side? Would it have mattered to her in her remote state or would that have been only for me?
A few weeks ago when I kissed her good-bye before heading home to D.C., I said “See you next week,” and she asked “Why?”
Although mid-week her eyes began to be closed more than open, I had planned to read to her the picture book of her life stories, which I made 2 years ago for her 90th birthday. It was my fantasy that she would then slip into death while I was there, with her hand in my carbon-copy, arthritic hand.
So, now who will enthrall to what I do every day and to the photographs I take?
Proceeding with today as planned seems odd. At the same time, it’s as though in a way my mom died after we moved her from Florida to Philadelphia, when it dawned on me she would never again be talking on the phone with me from her club chair, the one my dad had sat in for so many years until he died in 2006 and she inherited the throne.
I can just see her now, the books, magazines, newspapers piled on the table beside her, the remote control in her hand, watching the TV in her mirror-backed wall unit with the Lladro figures and other pretty things she had collected reflecting sunbeams while Chris Matthews ranted about the Republicans.
She wielded that remote with the facility of a man half her age.
I meet my friend Anita at Joe for a cup of joe. When I say, “My mother died this morning,” her expression of shock is far greater than mine was when earlier I had seen my brother’s name pop up on my phone and answered it with, “Mommy died.”
After coffee, Anita and I proceed as planned, pedaling into Brooklyn for a look at the local culture and lunch.
Mom would have loved hearing about the Chasidic family I passed on the Willaimsburg Bridge, the gaggle of kids and the man in a long black coat that flapped as he walked, white tights and a big fur hat (she would know the Yiddish term for this).
 salade niçoise We stop for lunch at Fada, reported to be the only authentically French bistro in the area. Happily there is nothing pretentious about this place that feels as though it’s been here since the invention of French fries.
We sit by a counter on high stools in the front that, being on a corner, is open to the street on two sides. My appetite has not faded with the loss of my mom. Rather, as I dig into my salade niçoise, I feel a numbness that friends have reported feeling after their parents have died.
My mom’s was a life well-lived and filled with love that ran its course with no regrets. How many people can say that? This doesn’t minimize how much I will miss our leisurely nightly calls and monthly weekends together. Her laugh, her insights, her contentedness that set the bar high, yet provide a great role model, for when I reach my walker years, if I do.
Pedaling back toward the Manhattan Bridge, I pass an African Arts Festival and shops shuttered for the Sabbath with names like Schenkel’s Fish Market, just the kind of travelogue Mom would have loved.
[Cheesy alert!] On the bridge, high over the river, I feel a bit closer to the clouds, closer to Mom.
My Worrywart feels self-serving linking to/promoting my other articles as I write this about losing my mom, yet she would be all for it! She loved hearing about my writing, both the substance and the successes and even the flops. And, we had so much fun writing a number of my Home Goes Strong articles together:
MY MOM’S DO-IT-YOURSELF DECORATING TIPS
DELIGHT YOUR GUESTS WITH MY MOM’S PARTY GAMES
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE JEWISH TO MAKE GREAT CHICKEN SOUP
EASY, ELEGANT ENTERTAINING: MY MOM’S PARTY FOOD
By susan fishman orlins There’s a gadget for everything these days, I’m pretty sure.
I’m not worried about this gizmo, ‘cept I have no memory of how it got in my kitchen drawer.
And I’m really curious what it’s for.
It seems to be a scooper of some sort.
gizmo For mashed potatoes? Or something that had froze? Or unfroze? Or doughs?
But then what’s the hole on each side of the silver hemisphere about?
It’s not a lemon juicer. I have one of those. And that’s not how the juice comes out.
Thingamajig How do you Google what something is when you don’t know it’s name?
Trying to figure this out is like a lateral thinking game.
I could try to describe it in a search.
But it’s more fun if you help me out of this lurch, So I can ditch the gizmo woe and instead get gizmo mojo!
Whatchamacallit
If I had already fulfilled my fantasy of ordering Worrywart t-shirts,
I would make this a contest to attract some kitchen-gadget experts.
And, for my blog, new converts.
I’ve heard Web surfers love contests and t-shirts.
How embarrassed should I be if no one gets back to me
with either a clever guess or the solution to my quest?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: Check out my recent articles
After my Husband Died, Dealing With his Possessions: One Woman’s Story
Romantic Design Ideas From an Exquisite European Boutique Hotel
Treadmill Work Stations Can Burn Calories, But They Have Other Important Benefits Too
By susan fishman orlins 
I’m drowning in junk, buried in boxes, suffocating with stuff. It doesn’t surprise me that all these metaphors point to an untimely end.
There would be great irony in getting snuffed out by my stuff, since one of my biggest worries happens to be that I’ll drop dead and my children will have the burden of sorting through everything.
I know what I’m talking about, because even though my 92-year-old mom has downsized several times and has already given some of her things to her children and grandchildren, my sister and I recently had to dismantle her apartment. I spent $300 to mail my share of her chotchkes from Florida to D.C.
Of course you could hire someone to hold a tag sale or find a charity to just haul everything away. But how could you resist going through everything, hunting for treasures that reveal in some cases more than you might want to know about your parents.
After our father died, my sister and I sat on the floor pulling things out of his night table drawer. Crossword puzzles, two pairs of glasses, an old watch and . . . What’s this long thing wrapped in a paper towel?
We looked at each other with clenched teeth fearing the most ghastly kind of sex toy as I gingerly unwound the paper towel.
Until . . . what revealed itself was . . . a toothbrush!
Whew! But that got me thinking what might reveal itself in my night table drawer if I were suddenly to get decapitated by a ceiling fan.
My night table drawer is where I always stored my valentines. Out of sheer laziness, I have never moved them to my “letters received” file, though it is nice to glimpse a red envelope occasionally when I reach for a PostIt and remember that men used to send me valentines.
It occurs to me my kids might think I still hold a torch for the previous Mr. Wrong. Yo kids, uh-uh, he’s just a friend.
Condoms? My kids are cool enough to be cool with that, except no one wants to picture their parents having sex. In this case my girls can actually imagine me not having sex, since the condoms expired in 2009.
I’ve strayed from exploring suffucation by stuff, so look for more of that in a future post.
Unrelated announcement: See my article Easy, Elegant Entertaining: My Mom’s Party Food.
By susan fishman orlins What if I meet a guy I like?
Monday: He gets up. I want to stay in bed but now I can’t fall back to sleep. Or, I get up and he wants to sleep, so I can’t turn on NPR.
 Ah, breakfast! I make myself French toast and a cappuccino and just as I’m about to sit down and enjoy reading the Times, he trots in and says, “Mm, that smells good.”
So I offer him some of my breakfast because otherwise I’d feel guily, but now I just feel hungry and my peaceful breakfast with newspaper indulgence is spoiled.
I walk the dog then return and set up outdoors to work on my laptop.
He asks if I want to bike along the river with him. I’m conflicted because a bike ride sounds great but so does my routine of working outdoors. Either way I’m screwed; I’ll regret that I may have made the wrong choice.
The day rumbles along like this with either interruptions or too many choices. Lord knows there were enough choices before he came along. On the other hand, some of the choices I used to enjoy, like walking with friends, have been reduced because of the time I spend biking and being with him.
Nighttime draws nigh and there’s the usual discussion of what, when and where to eat. He feels like going out. I always feel like eating home. He’s hungry now and wants real food; I’m not and I don’t; I just ate a chunk of dark chocolate, a handful of almonds and a large glass of milk, which you may recognize as my favorite diet tip.
I long for the Monday nights before he came along when the second I got hungry I could stand by the kitchen TV watching “The Bachelor,” while whumping down a salade nicoise.
After dinner, he wants to settle in with cops and robbers or the local news on TV, but I don’t like scary TV. Casey, who used to rest his head on my lap, jumps onto his lap.
A while later, one of us is ready to go to bed; the other isn’t. One of us wants to have sex; the other doesn’t.
He raises the thermostat. After his breathing shifts into slumber, I lower the thermostat.
Tuesday to Friday: It’s the same. (He is retired.) Except Wednesday nights I watch “Survivor” and he sulks.
Weekends aren’t all that different, but after a lifetime of conditioning, they feel different. On Saturday night, he wants to go to dinner and/or a movie. I hate noisy eating and crowded theaters. It’s a perfect night to be cozy at home.
There must be reasons people pair off into living spaces, but I can’t remember what those reasons are.
I suspect I’m missing something here. Do weigh in!
SEE MY NEW POST, ESPECIALLY THE PHOTOS: WHAT FALLEN 9-11 HEROES WOULD HAVE WANTED YOU TO KNOW
By susan fishman orlins Unrelated announcement: My new post “Divorce, Downsizing, Dating & Death.” Share your thoughts.
In a previous post 10 Days in New York: Lessons Learned, Worries Amassed, I mentioned seeing a flier that said simply “Sarah Needs a Job .com.” I was so intrigued by this that I went
 sarah needs a job to Sarah’s Website. Sarah Feldman is around the age of my daughters, and I thought I could help, so I wrote her the below email.
On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Susan Orlins wrote:
Hi Sarah. I saw your flier and loved it. Went back to photograph it for my blog www.confessionsofaworrywart.com. But someone had taken down the ones I’d seen on W. 14th St. I was intrigued, because I thought your fliers showed great initiative and imagination.
I also like your Website, though as a mother of 3 girls in their 20′s, I wanted to make a couple of motherly suggestions.
 sarah needs a job sit here I apologize in advance for being presumptuous.
One, I would clean up anything you can, because I think it won’t appeal to employers. I would remove the f-word, even from comments and I would rename the page of NEWYORKSHITTY.
I love how your enthusiasm comes through and I would be inspired to interview you, but also I would be a bit put off by the angry tone that shows up…naturally you feel that way. Maybe there’s a humorous or other way to express it.
Anyway, all that said, I’d like to mention you on my blog and maybe at some point do a separate post about you.
Oh, one more thing. I couldn’t tell what you do? I think from a comment that you are an artist and went to Pratt. It would be nice to know that. I adore the graphic on the Site that’s under construction and your earrings too!!
 sarah needs a job fruit market Good luck and I hope to hear from you and I hope you take my suggestions as from a well-meaning (overbearing Jewish) mother.
On Mar 27, 2011, at 6:35 PM, labohemianartist wrote:
newyorkshitty.com isn’t my website…
On Mar 27, 2011, at 8:34 PM, Susan Orlins wrote:
Now that you point it out, I looked more carefully and I see that.
The following day . . . Unable to leave it at that, I posted on her blog where she mentions a job interview:
Good luck with your interview! See my shout out to sarahneedsajob.com on my blog http://tinyurl.com/tyspf.
I’m mulling over whether I’ll show her this post that you are now reading.
 sarah needs a job and glam poster Please tell me you too have a story of being an unwelcome buttinsky!
Should I let Sarah know about this post? Please vote!
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT:
See my article Interfaith Passover Seders & a Heavenly Flourless Chocolate Cake and join the convo on that Site–I love comments!
And see my article Extreme Couponing: How Discount Coupons Can Save You up to 99% at the Supermarket.
By susan fishman orlins Are the doors locked? Am I on the right train? Is there spinach in my teeth? 
There’s spinach in your teeth; but isn’t it too late, too awkward to tell you now that we’ve been talking for 20 minutes?
Have I re-read the email I wrote enough times to hit “send?” Should I send it to myself first and double check it later?
Did I remember to put water on my night table? What if I’m in captivity and can’t have water by my bed? Do I need to break the habit now? How?
And if I am captured, how will I distract and occupy my mind? Should I memorize a list of things to think about, now while I still can, to keep me from going crazy in such a case?
What if I fall getting out of the bathtub and can’t get up? Should I get one of those necklaces with a button to summon help, like my 92-year-old mom wears? With that button around my neck, is it worth feeling old in order to feel safe?
What if Casey dog needs an operation to save his life? How much would I spend? What’s the cutoff?
What if I get a boyfriend and soon after he gets a terminal illness? Would I have the patience to sit with him in doctors’ windowless waiting rooms?
What if I get a terminal illness (knock wood or whatever)? Will I have the patience to sit in windowless waiting rooms? (NO)
Will I be as afraid of something bad happening if I take my (as yet unborn) grandchildren outdoors as I was to take my daughter’s Yorkie for a walk when I was his sole caregiver for a week, so I didn’t?
Ought I never again experience the joy of a plump raw oyster in case I get a bad one?
Do you know that for each worry I write, I have a dozen more? And that I’m afraid if I write them they’ll come true?
What if I run out of worries to write about? Is that even possible?
Possible or not, it worries me.
POST-POSTING RUMINATIONS: Is this post good enough? Too long? Too boring? I’ll make some phrases bold. Do the bold phrases help? Or distract? Will faithful readers ditch me? This is my 33rd update of this post. What does that tell me?
What are your what if’s?
COMING SOON ON CONFESSIONS OF A WORRYWART: STARTER MARRIAGE, THE MINI-SERIES
Unrelated announcement, see my new articles:
PAELLA: MY ALL TIME FAVORITE ONE-DISH RECIPE WITH VEGAN OPTION
11 EASY WAYS TO REMEMBER PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING
By susan fishman orlins Unrelated announcement: How Couples Resolve the Thermostat Wars & Other Domestic Battles
Sometimes I think my memories are based solely on photographs. My kids won’t forget anything the way they record themselves every time they change clothes, then post and tag the results on Facebook. Come to think of it, I’m not in a high percentage of those photos, so how much in the way of our times together will they recall when they’re my age?
 - chillin’
That raises the whole question of making memories. Unlike my kids who would like to vacation in St. Lucia, I prefer to be home, all of us hanging out, doing jigsaw puzzles, playing Boggle, cooking and watching movies, biking, walking the dog, reading or just chillin’.
Will it all blur into one moment of time for my daughters when they tell their grandkids what times with Ma were like?
Recently I went through photographs from my trip to Europe at age 23. I remember the faces of those kids I hung out with on the Costa Brava so clearly, but not their names, nor their nationalities. I think we sat around a lot, but that’s probably because it’s what my Kodak film captured.
That was July, 1969 when the first men had landed on the moon. I do recall one undocumented moment from that summer. I awoke in my pensione room and heard voices outside my door exclaim, “There are people on the moon!” And I thought, “Wow, Americans landed on the moon and found people up there!”
Not documenting may pose a problem for me, but documenting can be a greater problem. How do I organize all my journals and snapshots I’ve generated? I still haven’t put photos in the album I bought 20 years ago for the pictures from my marriage 31 years ago to a man I divorced 12 years ago.
Though digital pictures take up less space than snapshots, every time I go to press the button on my digital camera, I hesitate, thinking here’s one more photo to go in with the organizational mess of thousands.
So to document or not to document? Either way, it’s stressful. But then again, either way there’s some relief!
How important is documenting your life to you, how do you do it and how on earth do you organize it?
Here’s are links to related posts: ORGANIZING MY LIFE PART I, THE JOURNAL and PHOTOPHOBIA.
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